It’s not a low blow - in my experience the “churches” are in reality social clubs that have nothing in common with ethical values … which if you know a bit about religion is not surprising:
As for religion - difficult subject, and I would normally not bring it up. But you might as well know where I stand on it.
If someone is religious - no problem. I see it as a personal thing, so I don’t talk about it.
If someone comes to the door (usually Mormons or Jehovah’s witnesses) and wants to convert me then I’m happy to discuss with them - and quite quickly they want to leave and I do not let them as they started the discussion so we should finish it … and that can take hours (and I guess they put me on a black list as they no longer come - pity).
So where do I stand on religion?
When I was 12 or so I tried to imagine infinity. And for a brief (and really terrifying) moment I think I succeeded. It was like being trapped in a ring, going round and round, but linear, knowing everything … endless boredom. And I thought “If I were god then I would send little bits of me - the souls - on holiday into a Universum” … it turned out that this is not that far from what the jewish religion says (where allegedly the soul enters the body with the first breath and returns to god with the last breath), so someone must have had a similar idea a few thousand years ago.
Now my mother came to the little village I grew up in as an outsider (and with child - the scandal!), so for her it was always important to try and fit in, and how things look (“What would the neighbours say if we ran around with a hole in our trousers!). I always felt how I really was, the problems I had and what I was feeling did not matter as long as it “looked” acceptable. I really started to hate being judged on looks.
So I wanted to know how the World was, really was, not just how it looked.
As the church claimed that only they know the truth I started to get serious about religion and read the whole bible - both old and new testament - and the people thought I was very religious and would become a priest (especially as I also engaged myself in youth work and helped people a lot). But I had no interest in becoming a priest, I just wanted to know the truth - and the bible (while an interesting book) did not have it. So I also read part of the koran and a bit of the talmut … basically more of the same (even though Mohammed made some interesting additions) … and I have to say I agree with the German poet and philosopher Lessing who writes in his novel “Nathan the wise” about the three sons of a king:
The king had a ring that was always given from the father to his most beloved son, but when the king felt his death coming near what was he supposed to do? He loved his sons equally. So he secretly called a gold smith, had him melt down the ring, add two more parts of gold, and make three replicas of the ring. And after his death each son received a ring. As each son was convinced that he was the most beloved son, and therefore that his ring was the true one and the others were liars using fake rings. So they started to fight among each other, and have been fighting ever since.
An apt metaphor for the three big World religions …
The thing I found annoying about religion was being told by the priests that if you succeeded in something then “you only succeeded with gods help”, but if you failed it was “your fault because you didn’t believe enough”. Taking credit for your successes but no responsibility for your failures? They got you coming and going - I later realised that this is classical abuse. Shaming the “child” instead of encouragement when you fail - what “father” would act like that? No wonder the christians are famous for their guilt complex.
As I had also developed an interest in not just knowing how things are but how they develop over time, I still engaged with religion. And the more I knew and the closer I looked at Christianity the more obvious the holes started to become.
Take the nice Christmas story that is being told and celebrated every year where “the holy family” HAD to go to Bethlehem to be counted. Now the Romans were very big on counting the population - because every time a new governor took over (usually as a thank you for a successful military career) he wanted to know how much tax he could extract (they were allowed to keep 50%) - so he ordered another count (which also made it difficult for underlings to cheat him by keeping tax for themselves). But people were paying tax where they worked - so they were counted where they worked. Nobody EVER had to go to the place of their birth to be counted (or do you have to go back to Afghanistan for the next population census?). But an obscure prophet had once foretold that the “messiah” was going to be born to the “House of David” - and Nazareth was not part of that … but Bethlehem was. So a hundred years later and to support the claim that Jesus was “the messiah” the “christians" came up with the story, put in some then still well known names (even though King Herodot died 4 years before Jesus was born and the Roman governor become governor 7 years AFTER the birth … but who would check that when most people couldn’t read anyway?).
So the Christmas story is completely made up, nothing is real. And if you study theology you even get to know that because they teach you about it (I had a lot of interesting talks with a theology student). But every priest still tells the story as if it is real … and I had an interesting public discussion at a gathering of old schoolmates with an evangelical priestess who is married to Manfred, one of my more annoying classmates (women in the protestant church can become priests, and the priests can marry, unlike in the catholic church). She said in front of the others “Well, if some catholic village priests still tell the story, we do not …” but when I later when they departed told her that I will definitely be coming to her Christmas church service she admitted in private that yes, she also tells the story “of course" - what a bare-faced liar! I do not like her at all. And someone like her teaches children in “religious education”.
Another example: In the early middle ages the church introduced the celibate - priests were no longer allowed to marry. Officially it was because Jesus disciples were not married (actually quite a few of them were and left their wives behind … I strongly suspect that quite a few were gay), but the real reason was financial. People were the property of the land owners (called serfs, from “serving”, basically slaves), and low level priests usually came from that underclass (while the high up bishops were chosen from the “nobility”). As the priests were members of the lower class they could not inherit, so the church and house of the priest could pass on to the next priest without problem. But then a new class of free people came into existence - people who were given their freedom as a thank you because they had serviced their owners well. They moved to the cities, set up businesses, were successful - and had kids that were free people (that’s where the old German saying “Stadtluft macht frei” = “City air makes free” comes from). Now if a priest would marry such a free women she and her children might lay claim to the house when the priest died - so the church decreed the celibate, forced the women into monasteries, and sold the kids into serfdom. Lovely, isn’t it.
If you look at the actual history of christianity then you’ll find many more examples like this. The witch hunts. The Spanish inquisition. The Reformation that lead to the Protestants splitting off. The war against Science.
It is an incredible cheek to proclaim that “god is the truth” and then go about in the name of their customised small-minded god, behave so despicably, and lie their heads off.
If God is Truth then he is EVERY Truth - moral, historical, scientific Truth. And denying the Truth (like the christian church liked and still likes to do, eg Galileo Galilei, Kopernicus, Darwin) is the very opposite of what they proclaim to stand for.
Now why would they do that? To understand it you just have to go back to the ancient Egyptians (it is always easier to see something if you do not stand too close). The pharao was worshipped as a god that could foretell when the life-giving floods of the NIle would come and the planting could start - but the high priests MUST have know that a fast rider came from the highlands when it started to rain there (the water would arrive in the delta a few days later) … and they would tell the population that the pharao was wrestling with the sun god Ra to get the life-giving floods of the river Nile (while in reality he probably sat on his bed and ate some grapes). But as priests they had power, influence, riches. THAT’s why they kept the charade going - and happily lied and enjoyed the good life … while the slaves build the pyramids.
To cut a long story short (and I’m happy to discuss this for hours) I learned a few things about religion (btw there are over 3500 religions in the World) that is best exemplified by what I learned about Knights on a trip to Ireland. Ireland proclaims that they have over 3,000 castles - but most of the castles are just a tower! A stronghouse into which the “knights” could retreat when the farmers revolted, and come out again after they were gone (after all they had to milk the cows and plough their fields). What I wrote is:
People think of “Knights” as “valiant Knights in shining armour”, but for most of history they were armed thugs and gangs which build themselves a stronghouse (most often a simple tower as can still be seen in Ireland) and which terrorised the population into paying tribute, laying claim to their lands, lives, women.
As a Biologist you recognize a classic hunter-prey scenario, and in time (as hunters had done with wild cattle, sheep, goats, horses, wolfs etc 12,000 years ago) the hunters finally domesticated their prey to become landowners and farm their “workforce”. They consolidated their “rule” by formalizing their relationship in titles (like Baron, Duke, King) and rules (you must bow to them, do as you are told, work or die in battle for them). With the new riches that “farming” brought newer much bigger castles were being build.
What do we make of the priesthood then, a group that seemingly does not fall into either the hunter or the prey category. Well, there is another category in nature that feeds on hunters and prey alike: parasites.
I think that if you look at Japanese or African religions then you would have to agree from a “believers” perspective that the “priests” there are liars and scam artists. Parasites on their society. Because if they want to do good they could have become social workers (though that pays a lot less and you don’t have much influence).
But why would I think otherwise of “my own" religion? Because I was told as a child? What if I had been told about a different religion? [Maybe I am asking that kind of question because I was adopted by my father - great man and wonderful father - and sometimes wondered how different life might have been]
Because that is the essence of religion: it pretends to know about god to gain influence, power, riches over/from those it can influence (“believers”). That’s why every religion takes care of the young (indoctrinate them early) and the sick (good chance of inheriting something, especially if they are “sinners") while avoiding risks (no hard labour, don’t need to go hunting dangerous animals or into battle).
As a Scientist I see lots of evidence that religion is wrong, even evil - but no evidence at all that it is true.
Religion is not a “force for good” - history (and the present) tell us that it is only “good” when it is weak.
Religion becomes terrible when it becomes powerful - it puts invisible borders between people, divides them into believers and non-believers, starts wars (eg the crusades), prosecutes non-believers … and some religions try VERY hard to keep their believers and even threaten to kill those who leave (apostates).
I don’t know if there is a god, but religion is so full of contradictions (that are “explained” as “god works in mysterious ways”) and evil that it can not possibly have anything to do with god - or as someone said: “For me to believe in the christian god, the christians would have to be a lot more christian.”
Where is the religion that says “I don’t care what you believe in - if you are a good person you will go to heaven”?
I am convinced that religion has no clue about god, because in my very considered opinion any god worth praying to would not distinguish between believers and non-believers, and would not create humans as fallible only to then condemn them to eternal torture when they fail (who came up with this sick idea? Maybe the same ones who invented the test for being a witch: stuff the woman inside a sack with heavy stones and throw her into a river, and if she floats or gets out then she is a witch and will be burned on the stake, and if she drowns and dies then she was innocent … let’s pray for her).
I do not believe in a god that is small-minded, cruel, manipulative.
I do not believe in a god that is an abuser and torturer.
And therefore I do not believe in religion.
And don’t think that Islam is different - yes, there are a lot of good bits in any religious book (think of the three rings - one third good, two thirds crap), but just read sura 5 and 9 where Mohammed makes it very clear that he distinguishes between his “brothers and sisters” to whom all the good things in the koran apply, christians/jews that have to pay a penalty for not believing in him and if they do are to be left in peace, and infidels that can be killed and enslaved. As I said: borders. And I do not believe in a god that permits enslavement.
Btw the bit about “killing the infidels wherever you may find them” was copied from the old testament, so that is not unique to Islam as many think but was around for over 1500 years in the jewish and christian books already).
Uff. Enough religion.
